Monday, November 29, 2010

Two years and five and a half months later, we have our wedding pictures framed and hanging up! We put it off for awhile wanting a special place in our new home to put them and with the big empty hallway wall freshly striped, it was the perfect place. We got the frames from IKEA (Ribba birch wood frames) but unfortunately either the frames were an irregular size, or the prints were. We needed to get the mats recut and I foolishly went to Michael's first. They are so incredibly useless when it comes to framing. You're either going to pay $387 for a custom frame or they're not going to be able to help you at all. The latter was my case. *sigh*

I went then to our local awesome art supply store in Long Beach, Lyon's Art Supply, and they were able to cut them for me and ready for pick up the next day. Best part- 50 cents each! $3.00 total! So awesome.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

She did it! I asked, and my mom complied and made this awesome crocheted jersey cat bed for Lily Mae. She was unsure of it the first day but was all over it the following and slept in it for like 16 hours straight. She loves it!

My dad was chomping at the bit to do some demo while he's down here so the men rolled up their sleeves and go to work on the garage/future studio today. They did such a good job! I just thought they'd move the garage stuff into piles but they pulled out the stuff to keep, dismantled the Wedding Yeti, ripped down the old shelving, and loaded it all into the truck for hauling to the dump tomorrow. Mark came over too to brainstorm layouts with Jeff since he'll be sharing the space for his studio too. Next week hopefully the electrician and drywaller will come for estimates and we'll get this ball a rollin'!

I turned 31 on Friday! Holy moly time flies. Kind of crazy. But I have a good feeling I'm going to like this year. It certainly started off great!

Look how pretty my new necklace!! Jeff is a good gifter. It's made by Stephanie Simek and is a Japanese quail egg coated in 23K gold leaf on the inside (and coated in plastic for strength) and hangs from the most delicate 14K gold chain. Loves it!!

We did a little shopping down in Belmont Shore (I only got gum! Black Friday left everything picked over).

My parents took us out to dinner at La Parolaccia later that night. Jerod and Karen live around the corner and joined us, as did Jan's girlfriend Meghan. They sang me happy birthday and we dug into the assortment of desserts that we ordered. Sooo good! My mom's going to be so mad I used this picture but it was my birthday and this was the one that I looked good in.

I'm back! My parents are down south visiting and they are major time sucks. Always wanting attention, it's very tiring. Just kidding, it's been so lovely. We're calling my mom Esmeralda because she won't stop cleaning and my dad is also quite useful in the garage (that post to come later).

My mom was also super helpful on Thanksgiving and we had a lovely dinner here. We almost had a humongous one with the Haak's but we decided to split them up into two dinners because our dining room can't hold that many! We ended up with 9 and a half (Henry didn't take up a Danish modern chair, he had a chair with vice grips attached on our table so he counts as a half-guest).

The day started with BBQ'd oysters! Jake and Jenny brought over a bunch of awesome oysters and throwed them on barbie. They were sooo good!

Mandy made a beautiful arrangement for her table, I got lazy and chopped bunches of bolted basil from the garden and put them on the table. They smelled good though!

Mark and Karen brought the turkey (a happy free-range organic one!) and, I'm a little embarrassed to say, it was SO good. Yep, over 9 years vegetarian and I've been able to resist turkey on Thanksgiving for this long, but it smelled so good and it made me feel better that it was a happy turkey. Ah well!

Someone was upset he wasn't given a Danish modern chair to sit in... I don't blame him.

That's my Mac n' Mad Cheddah Jake is making a face at. It was a bit dry. JUST EAT IT!

My mom was in charge of saying grace this year and had a nice one that she memorized. "Lord, You that have given us so much, give us one thing more: A grateful heart. To those who hunger give bread and to those who have bread, give the hunger for justice." Amen!

Happy Thanksgiving friends and family! Jeff and I are very thankful for all of you and wish we could have crammed you all in our dining room.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Friday, November 19, 2010

Jeff's new painting for the LBMA Influential Element Show coming up in early 2011. And he has a HUGE piece in the works following this one with about a gajillion birds in it. He's an amateur bird watcher now.

Thanksgiving is going to be awesome this year! I don't have to share it with my birthday this year (everyone can celebrate me the day after) and we're going to have a full house for our feast! It'll be potluck style but I can't help but pull a jillion recipes that I want to make. Sunset magazine made it easy, all of these recipes are on their website:

And I guess we're having a turkey (a happy free range one). Seth's dad is going to BBQ it for us! Mandy will be in charge of her green bean casserole and pie, and Karen is all over the corn pudding. Jeff will help me cook and my mom will supervise. Dad will probably be drinking our Bulleit again and watching football. I can't wait!!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

We continued the patio project this weekend (on Jeff's insistence surprisingly, not mine) and did a lot of digging, weeding, raking, digging some more, and raking some more and finally got to the fun brick part today. Jeff initially got 160 bricks which he eyeballed to be "more than enough. Maybe we can even build a bench with the rest." 382 bricks later, we finished!

The whole project isn't quite done yet. We have to go another pass with the cement sand in between the bricks and then we're going to be planting moss in the gaps between the brick and the other winding pavers. Then it's done! And ready for the BBQ and the fire pit!

Jeff basking in the sunlight, and the feeling of a good day of hard labor.

Linus the lemon tree is so much happier in his new dirt and bricked in square! We repurposed these bricks that we found in the dirt patch to bring a little elegance to Linus.

Jeff was all about that stamping tool, until he got a mean blister from it. He cheered up when I gave him a Spongebob Squarepants band-aid.

TA-DA!! Pretty, right? Ignore all those holes along the side. They'll be charmingly filled with moss soon.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

It really feels like a whole new master bedroom... we love the new furniture. The bed is so comfy and the room looks so much more put together now. I'm really pleased with myself over it. :)

See how cute my dresser is in between all that Danish modern?? Jeff's wood dresser would have been way too much wood, plus he really likes the new one. More space! I love that huge mirror and the new placement of the art.

The bed fits perfectly on this wall. I would have wanted to center it under the long window but Jeff was uncomfortable with that. He said he could then see the ghosts in the hallway. Yup, I'm serious.

I always see things I want to change when I take "styled" pictures. It looks perfect to my eye until I see it in a picture and then I find things that can be tweaked. Like the leopard balsa wood piece. I think it needs to be lowered now. Hmm.

A close up of the dresser. Gorgeous. And it smells like almonds now thanks to the Method wood furniture polish I used on it!

And my baby girl. She's all better! She's not cooperating for this photo but she is accepting the new furniture and her lack of hiding space under the bed (although it took her about 3 minutes after we assembled it to figure out she could squeeze into one of the storage drawers under the bed). I even jazzed up the bedding. Because of Lily Mae's bulimia, we usually throw some yardage of whatever waterproof fabric I have on hand over the covers, but after organizing our linen closet, I found this Marimekko birch trees shower curtain I bought on sale at Anthropologie that we had in the downstairs bathroom at the old house! A new life for it. It almost looks like actual bedding...

Mandy and I did some experimentation with some cheap clear glass vases I had, spray painting the insides with gold and copper paint. We think they turned out pretty neat! We like that it hides the stems and floral foam and brings a rich metallic touch to an otherwise basic arrangement. We have a wedding booked for May and the bride wants some copper touches so we'll see what she thinks of these.

I love carnations. I really, really do. Especially when they are 25 for $8.99.

I did a little urban foraging for this bouquet... it's basil that bolted from a few of our gigantic plants. It smells sooo good, and looks pretty cool too I think.

This is one of those ubiquitous crystal bowls that you can find in just about every thrift shop. I think a little silver polish would shine up that rim, but we kind of like the weathered and tarnished look, especially with the copper and contrasted with the fancy looking cut crystal.

Our camellia trees have started blooming, and these guys fell to the ground. Such a pretty color, how lucky to have these already in our backyard when we bought the house!